Yemen: A Night in FunCity

The main cultural attraction of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, is an Old City in which every possible measure has been taken to resist the forces of modernity. This is nice for Yemen’s heritage, but it also poses a problem, and not just for visitors. Two-thirds of Yemenis are under the age of twenty-four; half are younger than fifteen. Yet there are no cinemas in Sanaa, no malls, and hardly any open green spaces. I heard rumors of one public park, but couldn’t find it.

One of the only real attractions in town is a rickety amusement park called FunCity. It sits in the shadow of the massive new Al-Saleh Mosque, built, with eighty million dollars of public funds, in honor of Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Defenders say that its size allows it to deliver moderate Islam to a large audience, something that is much needed in a country where Al Qaeda is an increasingly popular career choice. From the front entrance to the park, the flashing lights on the rides merge with the mosque’s illuminated minarets, making it difficult to tell where the entertainment stops and the worship begins.

I had been eager to visit FunCity, and one chilly night two French acquaintances took me there. The plan was to meet up with their Yemeni friends Waffi and Zaid. The rides at FunCity are of the simple, country-fair variety, and seemed geared mainly to young children, a couple dozen of whom were running around when we arrived. But we were there to go bowling.

Bowling at FunCity is a popular activity, but, at a thousand riyals (about five dollars) for twenty frames, it is prohibitively expensive for most young Yemenis. I had expected my new Yemeni friends—both of whom had avidly encouraged me to go—to be as enthusiastic about bowling as I was, but Waffi spent most of the time on his cell phone, even while he was throwing gutter balls, and Zaid showed up too late to play.

I had gotten to know Zaid a little bit. He is twenty-one years old, with shoulder-length black hair, a dark chin-beard, and an enthusiasm for American culture. When we first met, he had engaged me in a makeshift game in which he would attempt, using his limited English, to tell me about his favorite movie stars (he couldn’t quite remember their names) by describing the plots of the movies they starred in:

“There is a man, and he is in an airport, and he can’t leave.”

“Tom Hanks. ‘The Terminal.’ ”

“Yes!”

Zaid can identify with that Tom Hanks character, a man without a country to return to or a U.S. entry visa. Zaid would love to study in the United States—afterward, he hopes to find a Yemeni wife and settle down in Sanaa—but he’d have to be extremely lucky to do so. Since 9/11, visas to the United States have been much harder to come by, as have foreign-student scholarships. As it stands, he can barely leave the country; Yemenis can visit only Egypt, Syria, and Jordan without visas. (Waffi, who was raised partly in France, has an E.U. passport.) Instead, Zaid ended his studies after high school and now works for a construction company owned by his family. His daily life is mainly composed of, as he puts it, “walking around.” This does not excite him. “If you like old things—Old City, old buildings, old people—Yemen is for you,” he told me.

It was nearly 9 P.M. when we left the bowling alley, and the rides, still illuminated, sat unused and unattended. The place seemed a lot more dreary on the way out. We considered trying out the rides, but Waffi mentioned that they were regarded as unsafe. (A manager of the park later denied this.) I wasn’t particularly eager to take my chances, so we went home. There wasn’t anything else to do.

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